Allegedly
by CodependentCollision
Summary: Stacie's life is pretty fantastic. She has run into one tiny problem, though. It's more of a hiccup in the way things are supposed to go. She may have a teensy weensy crush on Beca.


**A/N:** An anon requested more random/crack pairings in this fandom and asked if I would write Stacie/Beca. This is my attempt at that. Not entirely sure how pleased I am with this, but if I stare at it any longer my head is going to explode and that seems messy. So, here it is. Let me know what you think :].

* * *

Stacie doesn't mind being in the background, because it's the background of an amazing group. She likes being the girl that people notice after they're done noticing Chloe and Aubrey, after they come out of their Beca-induced melodic coma. To her, it isn't that she's any less standout than the other girls; it's that people need time to build up. There is preparation that is necessary to take note of the Amazing and Gorgeous Stacie Conrad.

Sometimes she thinks she's so awesome she wonders how the other Bellas can stand it.

So her extreme magnitude of awesomeness makes it very much okay that she's noticed fourth or fifth or even sixth.

In fact, Stacie's life is pretty fucking sweet: she's an awesome chick in an amazing acapella group and young enough to enjoy it but old enough to not fuck it up.

She has run into one tiny problem. It's more of a hiccup in the way things are supposed to go. She may - and this is an unsubstantiated rumor passed from her hormones to her cheeks, which her brain overheard and could have misinterpreted - have a teensy weensy crush on Beca.

Allegedly.

She knows that - in theory or otherwise - this is probably a bad thing. Joe Perry probably never stood there on stage, staring at Steven Tyler and thinking about fucking him. So Stacie should stop daydreaming about Beca.

She's pretty sure this is all just a mistake, anyway. For one thing - and this is a pretty set-in-stone thing - Stacie is straight. She likes dudes. She loooooves men. She has sex with them, like all the time. And for another...

...

Well that may actually be it... the one reason why having a crush on Beca is impossible.

But all the same, Stacie thinks this is a pretty substantial wall.

She decides to forget about it.

* * *

Stacie. Cannot. Forget. About it.

Taking out the fact that they're in a fucking group together, seeing each other every fucking day, Beca is just on Stacie's mind constantly. Seriously: All. The. Time.

That slow smile she has when Beca's still half asleep and stumbling towards the auditorium for an early practice: wide and just a little bit stupid. The way Beca holds onto her headphones during a tackle, like it's okay if her sternum gets broken, just don't let the damn headphones fall off!

Plus the Bellas are constantly in communication. Even when they're not together they're constantly on cell phones.

But, Stacie reminds herself, you're straight.

A little voice in the back of her head says, allegedly.

* * *

She can't go to Fat Amy with this because she'd probably make Stacie a shirt that says 'I love pussy' or 'Kiss me I'm a lesbian' or something else horribly embarrassing on it. She can't go to Beca because it's hard enough to talk to _her_ without turning the color of lox cream cheese, so forget that. Plus, the whole point is for Beca to _not_ know that she's having these strange gay-for-Beca thoughts.

She goes to Chloe because Chloe is one of the smartest people she knows, even if sometimes the facts are questionable on the basis of gullibility.

She explains this whole possibility of liking Beca to Chloe, following it up with her rationalization of why this is a bad idea: "Joe Perry and Steven Tyler were never fucking around."

"How do you know they weren't?" Chloe steeples her fingers and looks Stacie in the eye. "How do you know you're straight?"

She sputters. "I like guys," she says. She puts her hands forward, palms up and thrust out toward Chloe, as if the evidence is right there for her to see. "I like having sex with them." She backs up. "No I _love_ having sex with them."

Chloe shrugs. "Do you like having sex with them more than you like having sex with girls?"

Stacie sputters again. "I haven't had sex with girls."

"Then how do you know you prefer guys to girls when you haven't give girls a try?"

"Ehrnm."

The dormroom door slams open and Fat Amy bounds in, and begins pulling boxes of crackers out from under her desk. Chloe and Stacie watch, waiting for some sort of resolution, and then smile at Fat Amy when she gives them a victorious grin, a new box of biscuits to take to class with her in hand. "Awesome," she says; then "Aubrey says to tell you don't be late for practice. I don't know when it is." They watch her leave, and then turn back to each other.

"I'm just saying," Chloe says. She puts her hands out too, mimicking Stacie from just before their interruption.

"I don't have to eat shit," Stacie says, "to know I don't like it."

Chloe stands up, and stretches, her back popping into place. "Hey, what you do during your big gay love fest with Beca is your business, not mine." She scratches her stomach and adjusts her shirt. "I gotta go," she says, "I have a ten page paper due tomorrow that I've written exactly none of." She salutes Stacie and brushes past her as Stacie quietly bursts into giant purple flames of embarrassment.

She decides that Chloe is full of crap and that she should just get over it. She could totally get over it. She _will_ get over it.

* * *

Stacie. Cannot. Get over it.

She tries; but that seems as hopeless as Lilly suddenly not being impossibly quiet or asking Aubrey to stop being so annoyingly pretty.

Just. No.

They're only halfway through the year when Stacie decides she just can't take it anymore. She seeks out Cynthia Rose because if anybody can offer advice, it's her. Plus they once had a superb night getting high and going through the albums upon albums of music like it was slam poetry, so now they have a bond. Stacie can _totally_ explain that she is has a bit of a girl-crush and she wants to get rid of it and Cynthia Rose will be able to tell her how to do that.

"She's not here."

Stacie stares at Denise, who is being incredibly unhelpful, continuing working on her assignment for her Life Drawing class. "Where is she?" Stacie asks.

"Not sure," she says. "Didn't ask where she was going." She turns to Stacie, sniffs and slides the pencil behind her ear before using her foot to tug a desk chair closer, then sits heavily in it, letting her limbs splay out in front of her.

Before she can stop herself, Stacie stomps her foot like a petulant child. Denise snorts. "Did you just-" she starts.

"No," Stacie says. She looks around and then pulls Cynthia Rose's desk chair from against the wall where it rested. She jerks her arm so that the chair pulls towards her, scraping noisily against the floor, and sits backwards, facing Denise, who taps her thigh with her pencil now, leaning forward and resting bare arms on bare knees. "Denise. You have to help me."

"Do I?" Denise is smiling. Of course she will help Stacie.

"Yes!" Stacie leans forward and is so earnest that Denise forgets to give her a hard time.

"Okay," she says. "What's up?"

"I'm a straight girl." Probably?

"Okay."

"I think I have a crush on a chick."

Denise doesn't say anything right away. Stacie waits, because what else is she going to do? "I think Cynthia Rose would sleep with you." Stacie is dumbfounded; Denise keeps going."She'll want to be in control but you're new at this, so it's probably for the best."

"I," Stacie says. She doesn't know how to respond. Except, oh, "I don't have a crush on Cynthia Rose."

"But you were looking for her."

"To _talk_ to her."

"Oh," Denise says, like this is some strange sort of anomaly; like, who wouldn't want to sleep with Cynthia Rose? "I don't know where she is."

Stacie yowls in frustration and stands up. "Forget it," she says. And then, as an afterthought, "Thanks."

"No problem," Denise says.

Stacie's walking away, when Denise calls out her name. She stops, turns and watches Denise lope toward her.

"The norm is the norm because you're used to it. You'll never know that you need something if you don't try it," she says before giving Stacie a quick hug and walking away.

"That's what Chloe said," Stacie calls after her. She doesn't know where to go from here. She thinks about everything except the cheap thrill of Denise being so close to her for that short period of time.

* * *

Stacie decides to take this time to 'get weird' as Beca claims.

She tries doing Sudoku puzzles, smokes cigarettes when she's sure Aubrey isn't looking, and starts chewing gum a lot. She showers fairly often too now, like maybe she can wash the gay thoughts away; come out red and dry and no longer wanting to treat Beca like a popsicle.

Ugh. And yet. Mmmm...

In the chill of an early morning, they stand near the locked auditorium waiting for Aubrey to get a janitor so they can get in. They breathe through their mouths so they don't smell the exhaust fumes from the nearby parking lot, but Stacie thinks maybe she'll be sick. Maybe from the fumes; maybe from not sleeping.

Chloe congratulates Stacie on quitting smoking, which makes Fat Amy laugh; so Stacie needs to awkwardly explain to Chloe (and therefore unfortunately to Fat Amy) that she hasn't actually quit smoking; she's trying to quit "_something else_."

"Oh," Chloe says. "You're still not over your desire to have a big gay love fest?"

Fat Amy laughs again and Stacie believes she may be developing a case of vertigo. "Big gay love fest!" Amy claps and smacks Stacie on the shoulder. "That's awesome." She's grinning now and Stacie frowns at her. "Oh," Amy says. "Is it with me?" She puts her hands to the front of her chest and squeezes, like maybe Stacie'll want a piece of that.

"No," Stacie says. And then to Chloe. "No." She turns and goes into the now unlocked auditorium, sullen... and pouty. "I hate you both," she says.

"Good luck with your big gay love fest!" Fat Amy yells, following Stacie into the room. Stacie ignores her, but Amy's okay with that. She needs to find a pen and some paper, because she has an _awesome_ idea for a big gay tattoo for Stacie.

* * *

Chloe always stands in the wings after everyone leaves practice. She likes to stand right there, hanging on a velvety curtain and watching Beca play the piano. Stacie starts hanging around with her, leaning behind her, or holding onto the curtain on the other side.

She knows she shouldn't - that she's only making it worse. But dammit, when you're at the Louvre you go look at the Mona Lisa. And when you're in the American Museum of Natural History, you go look at that fucking gigantic whale.

When Beca is playing the piano, it turns out, you watch.

When Beca's playing, she is totally into it. Stacie finds this mesmerizing, the close of her eyes, the way she can't help but move with the music, her light smile.

Stacie closes her eyes. She counts to three. She reminds herself that she is not a 12 year old fangirl. She is not a 12 year old fangirl. She is not a 12 year old fangirl. She opens them to watch and for a second her eyes are locked with Beca's, until Beca ducks her head down, fumbles a lyric and then keeps going like she meant to do that.

It's like someone just wrapped Stacie's entire body in icy hot and she doesn't know how to feel, so she lets go of the curtain, chugs a bottle of water and reminds herself that she is not a 12 year old fangirl. She is _not_ a 12 year old fangirl.

She is not a 12 year old fangirl.

* * *

Finally, one night, Stacie decides she can't take it any more. She approaches Beca as she goes to her dorm, but Beca grins at her, slaps her back, yells, "Great practice!" and walks into her building.

Stacie stands next to the building as Chloe rushes past her, and only turns when Fat Amy shouts from across the street, "Come on Stacie! Time's wasting to get on the big gay love train!"

Stacie looks up toward Beca's dorm, like maybe she can tell if she heard that or not, then turns and jogs toward her own dormroom. She crawls into her bunk and puts her pillow over her head, despite Fat Amy's shouts to come and watch _Castaway_.

Stacie wakes the next morning with Amy's alarm obnoxiously blaring Electric Six's 'Gay Bar'. But this isn't nearly as annoying as what she sees when she pulls her arm up from where it had fallen off the edge of the bed.

Stacie shouts, unleashing a stunning new pattern of curse words the likes of which have yet to be discovered by, well, her.

"DICKHEAD!"

Fat Amy pokes her head out of her bunk, looking surprisingly well rested for someone who was clearly up in the middle of the night doing at least one too many dirty deeds. "You ass," Stacie says. "What the hell is this?" She points to the permanent marker on her inner forearm.

"That's your big gay tattoo," Fat Amy says with absolutely no remorse. It's a heart with LOVER OF LADIES scrawled across the front in big black letters, and are those wings? "And you can see it when you masturbate thinking of your big g-"

"Shut up," Stacie says. She grabs her hoodie from her closet and tugs it on, glaring at Amy - who grins right back at her. "Just." She shakes her head until her hair shakes and turns to leave the dorm. "Shut up."

Beca and Cynthia Rose are standing near the doors when Stacie steps out. Beca turns her head and Cynthia Rose grins, waving Stacie over. "What?" Stacie snaps, a fine retort for the deserving Fat Amy but even she knows this is completely unwarranted for the other Bellas.

"We just," Beca starts. In the morning light her cheeks are pink. Her hands are thrust into her pockets and when Fat Amy bounds outside, Stacie is the only jackass not enjoying a southern sun kiss.

"What?" Stacie snaps again, and Beca turns a brigher shade of pink and drops her gaze.

"Nothing."

Stacie walks off before she can do anything else she'd have to apologize for later. Besides, she needs to wash her damn arm. And then kill Fat Amy.

* * *

Stacie tries a few days later, this time with hours to go before practice. She corners Beca at the cafeteria, looking for the perfect sandwich combination. "You should take that one," she says, pointing at one toward the back of the tray. "It's got everything you love." She takes the sandwich and puts it on Beca's plate.

"Thanks," she says and walks towards a table. They look at each other a moment and Beca smiles at her before taking a bite. She falters putting it back down onto the plate, licking her lips as she chews. "Did you want one?" She asks, gesturing at the table.

"Yes," Stacie says, then "No." She shakes her head and lets out a deep breath. "Can I talk to you?"

"Sure," Beca says. She glances around, looking for a place where they could go for some privacy. It seems like maybe it's that kind of talk.

"I like you," Stacie says to Beca's sandwich. Beca's hand twitches and the sandwich slides to the floor at Stacie's feet, a piece of salami landing on one of Stacie's shoes.

Beca licks her lips then looks around again. "Don't you want to have this conversation somewhere else?" A member of the Treblemakers walks past, as if to punctuate Beca's point that HELLO they are out in a very public location.

"No," Stacie says. She shifts her feet. "You either feel the same way and it doesn't matter where we are, or you don't and it doesn't matter where we are."

"Uh," Beca says. "Can we...?" She gestures at the hall anyway and then nods at it. "Please?"

Stacie turns and looks too and then nods. "Yeah," she says. Then, "Okay."

They turn and walk down the hall, Beca's plate still in-hand, then stop at Beca's dormroom. The door is open and the room is empty. "Where is Kimmy Jin?" Stacie asks.

"Not here," Beca says and grabs Stacie's shirt, pulling her into the room. She shuts the door and looks at Stacie. "Seriously?" she asks, as soon as they're alone.

"What?" Stacie asks. And then, "Yes."

"Like," Beca says, "Like how?"

Stacie shifts and sighs. She doesn't like this conversation. "It's just... it's a thing. It's a crush. And I'm going to get over it. And Joe Perry never had a crush on Steven Tyler and it'll just mess up the Bellas and you'll kick me out and replace me or something and I'll be alone and-"

Beca hits Stacie in the shoulder with the plate. No pain is involved, but the shock does the trick and Stacie stops talking. "Just hold on," Beca says, as she sets the plate on her desk. She steps forward and puts her hands on Stacie's shoulders. She licks her lips and presses them to Stacie's.

Startled, Stacie flails slightly before putting her hands on Beca's hips.

The kiss doesn't last very long. Beca pulls back and smiles at her. "Well. Do you still?" She clears her throat. "I mean." She gestures with her hands, as if one movement can explain Stacie's entire year of angst.

"Uh." Stacie says. She puts her hands on Beca's wrists and squeezes them. "Yeah. I do."

And Beca smiles. "Okay," she says. She leans in but Stacie stops her.

"Okay?"

And Beca laughs. "Okay."

"Can I?" Stacie asks, leaning in toward her.

"I wish you would," Beca says.

Stacie licks her lips, hesitates, and then leans in and presses her lips to Beca's. And then she presses Beca to the door, pushing herself into her and kisses her deeper. Beca puts her arms around Stacie and fists her shirt as the kiss grows deeper. Until Stacie breaks it. "Did you want, I mean, do you want..." And God, sex is Stacie's _thing_, okay, she's normally much smoother than this.

"God shut _up_," Beca says, but she is smiling. She pulls Stacie back down toward her and they kiss roughly. Their hands slide along each other but Stacie takes the leap first, sliding her hand down the front of Beca's jeans, applying pressure. "Oh God," Beca says.

And Stacie agrees, hips unconsciously rolling forward. Oh God indeed.


End file.
